Pranav stepped out of the courthouse doors and into the blinding daylight. The sudden glare of the Santa Fortuna sun felt violent after the grey anonymity of the courtroom. There was no applause, no shouted relief, only a profound, silent walk that felt less like freedom and more like crawling toward a predetermined destination.
He stopped at the curb. A long, black Corvini sedan, polished, silent, and predatory, waited. It was the only car on the street that looked like it belonged.
The recruits stood there, gathered on the sidewalk. They watched him with expressions that contained no welcome, only a tense, calculating observation. They looked like they were viewing an animal that had just survived a lethal trap, something none of them wanted to face themselves.
No one smiled. No one said, "Welcome back." This wasn't a victory celebration. It was a reminder.
Pranav walked directly to the car. The only person inside was Asrit, sitting in the back seat. The recruits filtered in, taking the other seats, leaving Pranav to sit beside the attorney. The silence that fell between them was thick and heavy as setting cement.
The car pulled smoothly away from the curb, blending instantly into the relentless flow of Santa Fortuna traffic.
Asrit finally spoke, his voice soft, almost soothing, but carrying the razor edge of a scalpel being carefully unwrapped.
"Do not thank me, Pranav."
Pranav swallowed, trying to force a neutral response, but no sound came.
"You were a legal problem. You created noise and exposure, and I solved it," Asrit continued, his eyes focused not on Pranav, but on the passing cityscape. "The family's name, specifically the financial integrity of our operations, was attached to that problem. That is the only reason you are not in a cage for the next ten years."
Asrit finally turned his gaze, his eyes icy and penetrating.
"Remember that. You owe the cost of the legal fees, the logistical support, and the exposure. The debt has been logged. It is substantial. Your debt is now higher than it was when you walked into that courtroom."
Pranav couldn't respond. The sheer, clinical precision of the statement was a physical blow. He had endured the terror of arrest, the humiliation of the branding, and the psychological torment of the trial, only to emerge with a heavier chain around his neck.
He hadn't won his freedom. The Corvinis had loaned it to him.
And loans, especially from them, always get collected, with interest compounded in blood and obedience.
Pranav stared ahead, his gaze finally settling on his own reflection in the car window. The glass was dark, tinted against the world outside, but it showed his face clearly.
He looked haunted, smaller, the ambition that had defined him now twisted into a desperate, trapped fear. The crow branded on his back felt like it was pressing into the leather seat, a physical weight.
The final, worst truth of all settled over him:
He was more trapped out here, under the watchful, invisible eye of the Corvini family, than he ever was behind the bars of a concrete cell. In the prison, at least the rules were clear and the enemy was defined. Out here, his freedom was an illusion, his survival conditional, and his life a number in Asuma's unforgiving ledger. He was an owned man, on loan to himself.
The reflection stared back: a branded puppet, driving toward his next assignment.